On the 1st of August, 2024, 7 judge constitutional bench of the Supreme court with a majority of 6:1 gave a landmark judgment where it ruled that there is a necessity to make subclassification within the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.This ruling overturned a 2004 decision in the case of EV Chinnaiah vs. State of Andhra Pradesh, which had previously prohibited sub-classification for reservation purposes. The supreme court came up with a judgment that sub-categorization of SCs and STs is legally permissible to provide separate quotas to more disadvantaged groups within the SCs and STs.
This judgment made a tectonic shift in the Indian society discourse. After 3 months of the historic judgment, on the 18th of October, the Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini in his first cabinet has announced the immediate implementation of the sub-categorisation of SCs and STs in the state of Haryana. Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini announced “In compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling, we have decided to implement the sub-categorization of Scheduled Castes starting today.”
Currently, there is a 15% reservation for SC and a 7.5% reservation for ST communities. With the new decision, the Haryana administration will be able to bring up sub-categorization within the SCs and STs and allocate specific quotas within this 22.5% reservation to those sub-groups within SCs and STs that have lesser representation in employment and education.
It must be noted that BJP Haryana has previously promised to implement the Supreme Court recommendation of making sub-categorization within the SCs and STs.
https://x.com/Mayawati/status/1847225364264755300
Mayawati criticizes this decision of the Haryana Govt. She took to them in conflict with each other. This is not only anti-Dalit but also a strongly anti-reservation decision.”
